Hi all! First off, thank you so very very much for your help yesterday with sleeveboard/seam roll advice and for your many great button suggestions! I ended up picking up a seam roll because the sleeveboard in question didn’t seem like the greatest quality, but don’t worry- it’s on my list for the future.

And now for the all-important button decision, which I will tell you after drawing out the suspense much longer than necessary. For those of you who were rooting for the color “pop!” of fuchsia or orange or red buttons, I totally get the kitschy-chic aesthetic you were imagining. And if I were a super cool burgundy-haired 20-something Brooklyn-dwelling post-hipster with a graphic design career and fabulous nerd-chic glasses, I might go for it. On me, though, I think it would look too “homemade Easter coat.” Plus I think the golden-lit aesthetic of an Anthropologie catalogue photo has become too ingrained in my mind with this coat already (Dan said last night that it looked like it could come from Anthropologie! Ok, not that he shops there or is familiar with its product line, but still- he said it!) But don’t worry, fuchsia fans, I will steal your idea for the pop of color (well, even though the coat is already quite a color) and do you proud by wearing it with fuchsia suede footwear (Miss Sixty):

And bright orange shoes as well (Yoki brand from ModCloth):

So for buttons, that left the other suggestions of more neutral tones like wood or cream. First of all, at the moment I do not live in a major metropolitan area like Chicago or New York. The only fabric store near me is a rather depressing affair. Their button selection consists of three of those rotating “trees.” I spun each of those trees around several times in hopes of finding something similar to the wonderful round bone buttons that Shelley suggested yesterday (thank you!), which I didn’t. I pulled a couple of cream selections and a wood one, both of which were reasonable with the coat, and the wood ones especially were a cute-but-not-in-your-face look. I was sort of leaning towards them, as the cream button options were a little bit cheap-looking, when I spied these little Gutermann fellows hiding near the bottom of the brightly colored buttons tree on which I had been focusing less attention:

Lime green with a cream stitch print around the edge (the stitch may actually be white, but if so, the detailing is too fine to tell). Almost breathless, I plucked them off the tree and held them against my nearly-finished jacket to check…

Dead-on perfect color match like you wouldn’t believe.

What are the chances? How on earth does one match a particular shade of lime green with such a tiny selection of buttons? I had pretty much ruled out green buttons before going to the store because I was fairly sure I wouldn’t find them in the right shade (you know what happens when you have the idea for something very specific in your head and then you go to the fabric store to try to find it… that never works!) They’re a little smaller than I was envisioning, but when I laid them out on the coat, I decided they would be just fine:

Ok. Rail all you want about them not being what you would have chosen… my mind is made up! This jacket is so close to being done, I can taste it. And once it is, I will stop yammering about it and you won’t have to hear any more about it.

Well, except for when I post the finished pictures. Soon, kids, soon.

About this blog

The Selfish Seamstress loves to design and sew garments, but only if she gets to keep them. I'm Elaine, known in the online sewing world as elainemay, and welcome to my selfish sewing blog.